Case

Steven Craig Miller scmiller at www.plantnet.com
Thu Dec 9 15:13:21 EST 1999


To: George Goolde,

GG: << That is why I personally prefer an eight case grammar to a five case 
one. I think it is a strong step in the right direction toward teaching 
students to understand their Bibles. The main idea of the ablative is not 
the same as the main idea of the genitive whether or not we chose to 
identify them as separate cases or uses of one case. >>

SCM: << I'm not for sure I understand why insisting that there are two 
separate cases, namely the genitive and ablative, allows us to understand 
Greek any better than saying that there is one genitive case with two major 
functions, namely the pure genitive and the ablative genitive. It seems to 
me that they both amount to roughly the same thing. >>

GG: << I guess what I am really saying is that we ought to put more 
emphasis on "semantic roles" than on morphological cases.  (Thanks for the 
terminology, Ron). I thought the point of my previous post, Steve, is that 
we needed to do this whether or not we called the genitive and ablative 
separate cases or separate uses.  The real reason I prefer the eight case 
system to the five case system is that it takes a step away from putting 
the emphasis on accidence towards putting the emphasis on syntax. >>

I guess I'm not understanding you here. Frankly, I don't see much 
difference between a five-case system versus an eight-case system. As I see 
it, advocates of the eight-case system are saying that there are: five 
basic forms for eight cases: (1) nominative; (2-3) genitive & ablative; 
(4-6) dative, locative & instrumental; (7) accusative; and (8) vocative. 
Where as the advocates of the five-case system are saying that there are: 
five basic cases for eight major grammatical functions: (1) nominative; 
(2a) pure genitive; (2b) ablative; (3a) pure dative; (3b) locative; (3c) 
instrumental; (4) accusative; and (5) vocative. Although the terminology is 
slightly different, they seem to be saying the same thing. I don't see how 
you can say that one "takes a step away from putting the emphasis on 
accidence towards putting the emphasis on syntax." They both have to deal 
with both accidence and syntax.

-Steven Craig Miller
Alton, Illinois (USA)
scmiller at www.plantnet.com
Disclaimer: "I'm just a simple house-husband (with no post-grad degree), 
what do I know?"




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